THE first pictures have emerged of daily life on Manus Island, taken from the camp and sent to refugee activists on the mainland.
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The Department of Immigration has previously released stock photographs of the island's processing camp, but since asylum seekers began to arrive on the island in November, the media have been unable to access the camp to verify conditions.
While Australia swelters in rolling heatwaves, the photos show asylum seekers on Manus are living in dongas, or transportable accommodation, with no doors and no airconditioning in intense humidity.
On Saturday, temperatures are set to reach 33 degrees, but with humidity above 70 per cent, local reports say the apparent temperature will hit 50 degrees.
The humidity regularly tops 90 per cent on the island.
The photographs show people sleeping outside the metal and weatherboard dongas on stretchers to escape the heat inside.
Despite the prevalence of mosquito-borne malaria - one in six locals was infected in 2009, according to the then-acting CEO of Manus' hospital - those sleeping outside did so without mosquito nets.
There are mosquito nets on the beds inside, but the structures shown have just loose flywire screens covering the doorways. Some of the screens have fist-sized holes in them.
In one photo, children are shown reading in a group on the floor of a small donga, with two fans pointing to sleeping and sitting areas. There are now 155 people on Manus Island, including 30 children.
A spokesman for the Department of Immigration refused to answer questions about conditions in the camp, but said they were comparable to those Papua New Guinea locals lived in.
Last month a group of asylum seekers wrote to the Department of Immigration to outline their grievances.
''Why they place us in a high-risk area to get a disease (malaria),'' the group wrote. ''People are being bitten and have sores all over their arms and legs … Water [is] not hygienic [and] not [of a] high quality standard. [We have] run out of water. We are suffering mentally and we think we are going insane and will be psycho in the future.''
A department official replied to the group on December 28, saying damage to an electrical cable bringing power to the water treatment plant had been repaired and there were no longer water restrictions.
He said construction on a permanent facility would begin soon, and the department was working with local authorities and Save the Children to arrange for children to go to local schools later this year.
